Painter, printmaker. Born in San Francisco, CA on May 3, 1902. Dorr Bothwell moved to San diego in 1911 and became interested in art through association with her neighbors, Anna and Albert Valentien. In 1921 she returned to San Francisco to study at the California School of Fine Arts and the Schaeffer School of Design, and continued at the University of Oregon. A trip to Samoa in 1928 inspired much of her future subject matter. During the 1930s she was briefly married to sculptor Donal Hord. After teaching at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, she further studied in Paris. During the 1940s and 1950s she taught at the California School of Fine Arts. The latter part of her life was spent on the northern coast where she taught at the Mendocino Art Center.

Dorr Bothwell became a modernist and symbolist painter, continually exploring new styles and themes, and was especially focused on theories of color. In 1979, she earned the San Francisco Women in the Arts Award and in 1998-2000, two Pollock-Krasner Awards


Exhibited: San Francisco Art Association, 1925-1957; Modern Gallery (SF), 1927; San Diego Art Guild, 1927, 1933; San Francisco Women Artists, 1929, 1942; Oakland Art Gallery, 1932; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; Riverside Art Association, 1941; De Young Museum, 1958 (solo)

In: Metropolitan Museum; San Francisco Museum of (Modern) Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Diego Museum; Santa Barbara Museum; Museum of Modern Art; Crocker Museum (Sacramento); California Palace of the Legion of Honor; Whitney Museum (New York City); Victoria & Albert Museum (London); Brooklyn Museum; Manning Coffee Co., San Francisco (mural, 1939)